Diatoms on glass

[Arkayne]

My tank is going through a small cycle and I'm getting a few patches of diatoms on the glass. Do you guys usually scrape 'em off or let them be?

 

[papagimp]

How old is the tank? Normal for this to happen on newer tanks.

If it's on the front pane of glass, I clean it off, since i like to see into my tank....the rest of them, I leave em be until nature can take it's course.

 

[Arkayne]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10192511#post10192511 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by papagimp
How old is the tank? Normal for this to happen on newer tanks.

If it's on the front pane of glass, I clean it off, since i like to see into my tank....the rest of them, I leave em be until nature can take it's course.

I'm approaching 9 months now. I just want to be sure cleaning the glass is ok because I usually clean off the front and the side for viewing.

 

[papagimp]

okay, at nine months, you should not be seeing this happening. Definaltly keep the front clean since you'll need to see what's happening in the tank, Possibly up the flow in the tank, this can help. Double check you water quality, check for nitrates, phosphates, Are the bulbs 9 months old? May need replacing. Old bulbs can spurt an aglae bloom when the color spectrum of the bulb shifts (they have a tendancy to do this when they get old). At 9 months your tank should be fairly algae free, especially from stuff like diatoms or cyno or dino's.

 

[Arkayne]

I'll test the water tonight. The diatom coverage on the glass is nothing like it was when I was establishing the tank. You are correct when you say I shouldn't have a problem with a 9 month tank because I haven't had much algae in months. I only have a few very light 1.5" circles on the front right now.

However, I did a few things to the tank lately and that are probably contributing to the algae. With your experience, hopefully you can pinpoint why? Here is a rough timeline of what has happened in the past month.

- I did a 20% change with distilled 5 days ago.
- 7 days prior I upgraded to 2x65 Orbit lighting set on a 9AM - 9PM schedule.
- 14 days ago I added more than 30lbs of live rock + zens from a neighbors 2 year established tank.

My zens are happily pulsing along and my livestock is active and hungry.

 

[drummereef]

I would look into your water source. Are you using RO/DI or tap water? Diatoms are feed by silica usually found in your source water. In my area the tap water is full of silica. The only way I've found to beat them is through using RO/DI water with 0 TDS.

If you are using distilled water for all your changes, get a TDS meter and check it.

 

[Arkayne]

My RO unit is down so I couldn't use it so I used Arrowhead distilled water instead. A few forum searches clarified that it was ok. I should have tested TDS beforehand and I didn't. I'm a learnin'!

 

[papagimp]

Its possible that all three of those options contributed. Increase in lighting can definatly fuel algae growth, added rock can add nutirents that will need to be consumed, and using distilled water vs ro/di can do what drummer mentioned.